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Having moved closer to my local GW and getting in contact with a friend who wishes to meet up and go and play warhammer Ive decided to really get into playing for real. No more casual collecting only. Time to actually have a few games and learn the rules.

Now he wants to buy the new starting set the one with the new chaos in, although im not particularly interested in chaos as hes taking the marines for his already build terminator army. Now I do have a tyranid battleforce built but not painted with 6 warriors and two carnifexes both with duel scything talons and my codex is up to date. But I bought them more as a bargain than an actual choice of army. As we are starting for real I thought maybe I should try some different army. All those models are just daunting. Id prefer to build and paint in small numbers as i buy.

The question is what do i do now im really starting. Should i stick with the tyranids, im sure they're great and have some nice models but ive already got a skaven army and its just so many models i have to paint. Ive been looking an different armies so far the new necrons seem pretty neat but again im just not sure and could use guidance. Some of the chaos models do look nice and the army might grow on me but again a lot of money if im wrong.

The problem is i recently bought both my skaven and tyranid armies but this feels like a real fresh start and part of me wants a clean slate to start from, which would mean selling all my current armies and starting for real from scratch. But its a risk, is it one i should take???

Any advice would be great

Its really up to you man.
Personally I have Nids. They have been kind of nerfed with the new edition, but they are still a good army and the models are fantastic. A Nid army doesn;t have to be massed troops. Tervigons, Trygons, Tyrants... the large options are many and all great kits. If I were you, I would stick with Nids. You've made the investment and the worry about getting bogged down in massed units can be avoided based on what you buy.
However if you want to move to a new army, I would suggest that you play test a couple armies. Talk to other gamers/ friends in the region to "borrow" an army for a game or 2. Barring that, do some research. Dakka has some great threads about tactics and general feels for each army.

What kinds of armies are you interested in? I know you would like a low model count. But do you want a shooting army, assault, or balanced? Do you want evil, good, or neutral? Do you want an army that is really competitive, has cool models, or has interesting fluff?

You should play the army you want to play, not the army you happen to have a couple of miniatures for. If what you want to play is tyranid, then play tyranid. If it's not, then swap your tyranid minis for different ones, either with locals or through ebay.

Yeah, Ailaros has it right. If you don't like the army then you'll lose interest a lot quicker and stop playing. It's much easier to paint a whole army if you like the models, the fluff and the colour scheme. If you're looking at the nids and thinking "Oh God why" then trade them.

Play the army you want, not the army you have. This hobby is expensive, both in time and money. If you are not fully into the army you are building, painting, and playing, you are cheating yourself.

Look through the GW site, searching for models you like. If there a faction that jumps out at you in particular? Then read up some more on that faction's fluff and game play. If you don't like how those work out, start over, choosing a new faction.

Finally, after all that is said and done, see if somebody in your local meta has that army and will let you play a few matches with them. Then you start to buy the army you want.

-cgmckenzie

 Ailaros wrote:
You should play the army you want to play, not the army you happen to have a couple of miniatures for. If what you want to play is tyranid, then play tyranid. If it's not, then swap your tyranid minis for different ones, either with locals or through ebay.

Agreed. Otherwise you just won't enjoy the game as much. You'll feel like you've been stuck with a large horde army to paint and operate when you never really wanted one.

My advice would be to sell and start again based on a compromise between models that you think look cool, and how you think you want to play. There's no point keeping the Tyranids if you want to shoot stuff and don't want to have to paint loads and loads of samey minis. You'll just end up hating them.

So, yeh, think about the type of game you want to play (shooty, assault, horde, elite, or whatever), then think about what models you like the look of and the models that you'd find enjoyable to paint. Also consider the fluff you like if you're into that because that can help maintain interest too. And just because your friend is going Dark Angels doesn't mean you can't go Space Marine as well. That would be my advice.

Good luck.

I am in the same sort of position as you. Just started uni and have found people that play and really want to get into the game properly (again!).

Found the advice in this thread very helpful.

Well I do like the nids after all im a big aliens/starship troopers fan and the space bugs are usually my thing. But when it comes to painting and modelling they are alittle limited. I like to go to town on each model and I like having each troop look alittle different.

Theres other armies ive looked at where i love afew models and just generally feel the rest are ok like orks. I used to collect orks and they were very fun to paint and the new killa kanz and dredds are just beautiful but normal troops are still meh. Same with necrons, dark eldar and so on.

Problem is theres things i love and things i dont thats leaving me undecided.

For tyranids:

PRO'S:

I love giant monsterous alien bug units stomping round the battlefield

I love the alien feel

Love crushing my enemies under a wave of scything death and bio weapons.

CONS:

90% of models look identical

Boring to paint as its more washing than details

im not a great horde general i tend to rely on expensive heavy units over hordes

not enough individual personality in the army, no charging into battle with victory cries and hero units having an epic last stand and so on.

so many models D:

You want an army that relies on a few, elite models with a lot of character that aren't completely boring to paint, and are individualistic. Bad guy army a plus.

Sounds like CSM to me. And they just got a new codex to boot. And because they're in the 6th ed starter box, they're super cheap.

Second place would probably be orks, as you say. Not a horde army, but a warbike or a MANZ IN CANZ kind of a thing. What really makes this choice shine is the vehicles, which you can certainly put together to make look like nothing else that's been made.

Others you may want to consider are GK, which are elite, individualistic, but not great to paint. Interestingly, you really could do tyranid here as well. Yes, you'll have a few gribblies, but the showpiece of your army would be the monstrous creatures (known as a nidzilla list). A couple of tervigons to get scoring units, but the rest is a flying hive tyrant and a bunch of malwocs (dune worms), etc. In this case, outside of the little guys, the models wouldn't necessarily look identical, wouldn't be a horde-based army, etc. Of course, you'd be stuck with a lovecraftian color scheme that wouldn't be much on the painting side.

If its the painting putting you off nids then I can sympathize with you. However there are techniques and products which can speed this up to a rediculous pace! Use the army painter coloured primers and the dipping technique. Link is below

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Dipping_Tyranids
And just google army painter to look at their range. It saved me loads of time on my gribblies.